The storms of spring She never had a birthday party until she was an adult. Way too many meals were cornbread and milk. Dresses were made from flour sacks, and she owned exactly two at a time: one for school … Continue reading →

So why do we do genealogy anyway? The Legal Genealogist is still fighting connectivity issues in rural Indiana (the thick brick walls of a historic riverside hotel mean no wifi for me!), but if one-finger-cellphone-typing will hold up for just … Continue reading →

So… The Legal Genealogist‘s perfect string of daily posts meets up with internet connectivity issues in beautiful downtown Rising Sun, Indiana. Yesterday I headed here, about 50 minutes or so west of Cincinnati, host of the 2012 National Genealogical Society … Continue reading →

May 5th birthdays Four members of my family are recorded with birthdays on the 5th of May. Three are living today: the oldest is my brother-in-law Mike; in the middle is my nephew Tim; and the baby is my great … Continue reading →

WDYTYA, the Battle of Trenton and lineage societies Most of the time, when I watch Who Do You Think You Are, the power of the emotional hits the celebrities take at times during their discoveries comes as no surprise to … Continue reading →

How can it be 13 years already? Thirteen years ago this past week, we lost Hazel Irene (Cottrell) Geissler to multiple cancers. A smoker like many in her generation and like most of her family, she paid the terrible price … Continue reading →

A Texas ranger in the family! We’ve got us a Texas ranger. A real-live (well, um, okay, so he’s been dead for 121 years1) Texas ranger. And not just in a collateral line2: this guy is my 2nd great grandfather … Continue reading →

Name repetition in German families A striking characteristic of German families — or at least my German family — is the persistence of names. From father to son to grandson, from mother to daughter to granddaughter, names tend to be … Continue reading →

Happy trails to you, ’till we meet again… I didn’t think it was going to bother me so much. I have known for months that this census would be bittersweet. Seeing people appear for the first time, seeing some appear … Continue reading →

The end of an era Today, for the first time in more than half a century, the Farm belongs to someone else. That name — with the capital letter — is what generations of Cottrells called a plot of land … Continue reading →